GOP Bets Attacks on Obama Will Tip Virginia Race

By

Corey Dade and

Jake Sherman

Updated Sept. 11, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET

LEESBURG, Va., -- Peter Nicholson, manager of a local winery, recalls the day last fall when a visit by Barack Obama electrified the entire town. Mr. Obama went on to carry the county and Virginia -- the first Democratic presidential candidate to win both jurisdictions in 44 years.

Less than a year later, Loudoun County is an important bellwether again in the intense race for Virginia governor between Democrat state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell. Mr. Nicholson says the bloom is already off the vine for Democrats.

ENLARGE

Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell
Associated Press

"If hope and change is [that] you're unemployed and you can't pay your mortgage, than you're probably not going to vote for the guy who brought the hope and change, or his party," says the 44-year-old Mr. Nicholson.

Republican leaders, still licking their wounds from the party's disastrous performance in 2008, have made winning this year's two governor's races -- in Virginia and New Jersey -- a centerpiece of their strategy to revitalize the party before the 2010 congressional elections. Republicans saw in both states the opportunity to win back moderate voters by tacking away from wedge issues, such as opposition to abortion, that have long defined the party, and by seizing on discontent with Mr. Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress over their handling of the recession and health care.

Strategists in both parties use Virginia to gauge the national electorate, because the state's racial, age and gender profile, as well as its moderate political views, generally mirror those of the nation. Last year, for instance, Mr. Obama got nearly 53% of the vote nationwide and 52.6% in Virginia.

ENLARGE

Democrat R. Creigh Deeds
Associated Press

So far, Republicans are making headway. Mr. McDonnell, a former Virginia attorney general and state lawmaker, has pounded his Democratic opponent as a disciple of Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats, and built a lead of 10 to 12 percentage points in most polls. A Survey USA poll released Sept. 3 found that 13% of last year's Obama voters planned to vote for Mr. McDonnell.

In New Jersey, Republican challenger Christopher Christie has used a similar strategy against Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine to build a lead of 10 percentage points, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this week.

Even the recent revelation that Mr. McDonnell wrote a graduate-school thesis 20 years ago that was critical of career women, and promoted government discrimination against "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators," doesn't yet appear to have significantly eroded his support.

Going into the campaign, Democrats were expected to capitalize not only on Mr. Obama's popularity but also on a Democratic winning streak that began with Mark Warner's gubernatorial win in 2001, followed by victories by current Gov. Tim Kaine in 2005, Sen. Jim Webb in 2006 and Mr. Warner again in a 2008 landslide victory for the other Senate seat. (Virginia governors are limited to serving one four-year term and cannot seek re-election.)

Mr. Deeds hasn't had an easy road. He had to pull off a come-from-behind win in the primary and bring in more experienced campaign staff. And he continues to struggle to present a defining issue that resonates broadly with voters -- this week, his message seemed to be education overhaul. The lack of a clear image has left him vulnerable to Mr. McDonnell's accusation that he is in lockstep with Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats.

Mr. Deeds faces another obstacle: history. In every Virginia gubernatorial election since 1977, the party that won the presidency the previous year went on to lose the governor's race.

"Voters in Virginia tend to take on the mission of the founding fathers, who believed in balance. Apparently this thing has become an iron law. It's just fascinating," said political science Prof. Larry J. Sabato at the University of Virginia. "It really does give McDonnell a major boost. While this thesis controversy helps Deeds, that can't counteract this movement away from Obama."

The term-paper flap, first reported by the Washington Post two weeks ago, provided an opening for Mr. Deeds, and for the first time put the smoothly running McDonnell campaign on defense. Mr. McDonnell publicly renounced much of what he had written as a 34-year-old candidate for a joint master's and law degree from Regents University, a Christian school in Virginia founded by conservative televangelist Pat Robertson. He told reporters that his life experiences since then, and his two adult daughters, helped him change his views, particularly about working women.

"It's irrelevant" to the campaign, Mr. McDonnell said in an interview. "The people of Virginia don't care about a term paper and looking backwards."

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